Silver Showers.
By Rockwaldo 

We all dream.

Some people dream of wonderful things.

Some people discover something in real life that on reflection *should* have been part of a dream, something that you wish you had dreamt of beforehand so that you could savour the very thought before actual discovery.

Well, I now have a new addition to my dreams. “PAC-MAN BALL”

Now, our good friend Pac-man has been bloody everywhere. Namco seem quite happy to the whore the poor lad (and his family) out to whomever wants them. Well this time the whore has stuck gold.

Consider these three desirable items if you will.

Our beloved Pac-man, Puzzle Bobble and the classic funfair arcade coin pusher.

Could they be combined in some way to create a fusion of orgasmic joy? Oh…they can…and they have.

A slightly unlikely home for
the original spirit

Firstly, you have the joys of watching hundreds of 10p’s sliding back and forward behind the small glass panel, with an ever precarious looking stack of 10p’s leaning over the edge like a fat guy reaching down to pet a small fluffy duck in a pond.

They can be yours. Oh yes. And all you need to do is feed it some 10ps and knock that fat lad in the water and be rich beyond your wildest dreams (in stacks of 10p’s admittedly – but just think of the gobstoppers you can buy with all that silver!)

But this isn’t just a coin pusher machine with that whore Pac-man painted onto its non glass surfaces, oh no.

Once you feed this chap with your 10p (truly skilful people can try the “two at a time” technique, although this may lead to people thinking you are Jean Michel Jarre as you mince about the machine), the coin has to navigate a pretty congested back board before it gets to the slidey goodness below. On this we have many fruit boxes that the coin can pass through, each denoted by a different fruit, and indeed a Pac-man symbol for the bottom one.

If your valiant coin happens to miss all of these as it bounces across the many pins, then its straight to standard coin pushing, and with just a single coin in the mix you might want to put your plans of a new car on hold as you wont topple many riches your way.

It is when you are lucky enough to pass through one or more of these boxes of love that the screen kicks into life. On this screen you have a puzzle bobble style setup, and once your coin passes through a fruit, it fires a couple of balls on the screen which proceed to mix and match up with the balls already there. For each match you get an extra 2 coin bonus, and through crazy chain reactions you can build up a bonus of well over 10 coins. This is where it gets good, as the machine then proceeds to SPIT the amount of coins awarded onto the top shelf of the slidey thing and the flood of 10p’s make you rich.

That’s the plan anyway. We managed to spunk about £6 up the wall over about 20 minutes, but LOVED every damn second. The combination of the game play and the perky music is sure to delight young and old.

It really is a rare joy, in an arcade world being cruelly taken over by the fruit machines of this world for sure. Go track one down and begin your road toward riches, in 10p form!

August 2005

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